clock | February 7, 2008The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of mans inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures.
- Charles R. Darwin
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Thanks Michael Barton for today's quote.
clock | February 7, 2008Transparent Adult Zebra Fish Will Make Human Biology Even Clearer:
Zebrafish are genetically similar to humans and are good models for human biology and disease. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have created a zebrafish that is transparent throughout its life. The new fish allows scientists to directly view its internal organs, and observe processes like tumor metastasis and blood production after bone-marrow transplant in a living organism.
Oldest Horseshoe Crab Fossil Found, 100 Million Years Old:
Few modern animals are as deserving of the title "living fossil" as the lowly…
clock | February 7, 2008There are some interesting articles published in PLoS Genetics, Computational Biology, Pathogens and Neglected Tropical Diseases and these got my attention at the first glance - you look around for stuff you may be interested in:
Comparing Patterns of Natural Selection across Species Using Selective Signatures:
Natural selection promotes the survival of the fittest individuals within a species. Over many generations, this may result in the maintenance of ancestral traits (conservation through purifying selection), or the emergence of newly beneficial traits (adaptation through positive…
clock | February 7, 2008Moshe Pritsker and I first met at Scifoo, then shared a panel at the Harvard Millennium Confreence and finally met again at the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago. Moshe is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visualized Experiments, the innovative online journals that publishes videos demonstrating laboratory techniques.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I am a co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). It is my full…
clock | February 7, 2008I and the Bird #68 - Winter Doldrum Edition - is up on Biological Ramblings
The new edition of Change of Shift if up at Nursing Voices.
And something a little meta: Re-thinking the Blog Carnival
clock | February 7, 2008Apophenia, danah boyd's blog, is one of the first blogs I ever discovered back in the depths of Time, certainly the first non-political blog, even before I found any science blogs. We finally got to meet last year at the ASIS&T meeting in Wisconsin. She just published a paper and, in her last post wows never to publish in Closed Access again. Then she gives a list of bullet points about what to do - see if you recognize yourself in one of them.
clock | February 6, 2008It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the 'race is for the strong' and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science.
- Charles R. Darwin
Support The Beagle Project
Read the Beagle Project Blog
Buy the Beagle Project swag
Celebrate Darwin Day
Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial
Read Darwin for yourself.
clock | February 6, 2008Gene Variants May Help To Distribute The Work Of Evolution Between Men And Women:
Scientists from deCODE genetics have discovered two common, single-letter variants in the sequence of the human genome (SNPs) that regulate one of the principle motors of evolution.
Key 'Impact Hunters' Catalyze Hunting Among Male Chimpanzees:
While hunting among chimpanzees is a group effort, key males, known as "impact hunters" are highly influential within the group. They are more likely to initiate a hunt, and hunts rarely occur in their absence, according to a new study. The findings shed light on how and…
clock | February 6, 2008....Scienceblogs.com
Busy today. What are the others writing about?
Abel Pharmboy and DrugMonkey discuss the causes of death of Heath Ledger.
Nature had some articles about ScienceDebate 2008 and got it all wrong. I agree with what John Lynch wrote.
PhysioProf explains the brave new world of NIH Grants - not what I remember from the times of plentiful funding.
Angry Toxicologist on animal testing.
Obligatory Reading of the Day: Janet on the project of being a grown-up scientist.
The awesomest movie of a gigantic shark.
Shelley and Steve are Of Two Minds...
clock | February 6, 2008Vanessa Woods is a researcher with the Hominoid Psychology Research Group which recently moved to Duke University - just in time for her to be able to attend the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago. Vanessa is the author of four books (three of those are for kids, the latest one, It's every monkey for themselves just got translated into Hebrew, and is aimed at adult audience). She is a feature writer for the Discovery Channel and she documents her research on her blog Bonobo Handshake (and what it means? Check the blog!)
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my…
clock | February 6, 2008Carnival of the Blue #9: Make 2008 a Blue Year! is up on The Other 95%.
Tangled Bank #98 is up on Quintessence of Dust
Carnival of Education -- Valentine's Edition -- is up on The Colossus of Rhodey
The 110th Carnival of Homeschooling - Acrostic Edition - is up on About:Homeschooling
clock | February 5, 2008Here, poor Forbes made a continent to N. America & another (or the same) to the Gulf of
weed. - Hooker makes one from New Zealand to S. America & round the world to
Kerguelen Land. Here is Wollaston speaking of Madeira & P. Santo "as the sure &
certain witnesses" of a former continent. Here is Woodward writes to me if you grant a
continent over 200 or 300 miles of ocean-depths (as if that was nothing) why not extend a
continent to every island in the Pacific & Atlantic oceans! And all this within the
existence of recent species! If you do not stop this, if there be a lower…
clock | February 5, 2008Tons of new stuff in PLoS ONE this week. Some titles that caught my eye:
Comparative Bacterial Proteomics: Analysis of the Core Genome Concept:
While comparative bacterial genomic studies commonly predict a set of genes indicative of common ancestry, experimental validation of the existence of this core genome requires extensive measurement and is typically not undertaken. Enabled by an extensive proteome database developed over six years, we have experimentally verified the expression of proteins predicted from genomic ortholog comparisons among 17 environmental and pathogenic bacteria.…
clock | February 5, 2008There were already two Science Foo Camps (in summers of 2006 and 2007) and two Science Blogging Conferences (in winters of 2007 and 2008).
But the hunger for such meetings is far from satiated. So, if you have time and money and can travel, you can choose to attend the SciBarCamp on March 15-16, 2008, where Eva is one of the organizers and Larry will be there.
Or you can go to the International Science Media Fair in Trieste on April 16-20, 2008. I'll be there, on two panels, one about Open Access, another on Science Blogging.
Or, a little later, you can attend the World Science Festival…
clock | February 5, 2008
Two books - Facebook: The Missing Manual and Wikipedia: The Missing Manual arrived in my mailbox today. How did I get them? By being on Facebook, getting a message from the O'Reilly Facebook group and being one of the first 20 to respond. The first glance at the books and the tables of contents suggests both books will be useful references and I will try to use them in the near future as I plan how to take over the world!
clock | February 5, 2008Dave Munger is part of the numerous North Carolinian contingent here at Scienceblogs.com. He writes the Cognitive Daily blog and runs the ResearchBlogging.org blog aggregator. At the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago, Dave led a session on Building interactivity into your blog.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
Hi, I'm Dave Munger. My background is in writing, editing, and publishing. I've written several textbooks, most notably, Researching…
clock | February 5, 2008Grand Rounds, Vol. 4, No. 20: The Health 2.0 Explosion - are up on Diabetes Mine
clock | February 5, 2008Open Students is a new blog for students about open access to research. It is run by Gavin Baker (who also recently joined Peter Suber at Open Access News - Congratulations!) and sponsored by SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, as part of its student outreach activities.
The blog will cover the issues of Open Science as it affects the college students and will have frequent guest-bloggers (students, librarians, researchers, publishers...) - of which you can be one if you contact Gavin.